Apparently, according to a columnist in the Guardian Starmer is moving the UK towards a wartime economy, albeit doing so ‘regretfully’ at the expense of foreign aid, which is now headed towards being less than half of the arbitrary 0.7% of GDP established in law (amazingly) by the Tories in 2015. It seems like the poor can pay for everything—similar crocodile tears of ‘regret’ were shed by Rachel Reeves when she took away the Winter Fuel Allowance from pensioners. I think the Starmeroids are lying bastards, but since the impoverished and dying in the developing world don’t have a vote it doesn’t matter. Looks like more will have to be spent on ‘stopping the boats’ as more people flee their knackered homes elsewhere. Let’s not forget Trump is doing much the same thing with USAID. I can imagine Starmer repeating in his sleep ‘I’m not Neville Chamberlain. I’m not an appeaser. I’m a tough guy.’ Perhaps he mumbles it to himself when he’s awake too. But since we are so often reminded about the period of appeasement with Hitler and how it must not be repeated with Putin, we might do well to remember that the circumstances are not the same. It is true that until the attack on Pearl Harbour late in 1941 the U.S. was fairly isolationist, but not passively so, it supported the UK’s war effort through various means. Trump is no Roosevelt and if it were Trump in the White House in 1940 I guess he might have said how much he admired Hitler as he has said about Putin today. I imagine if Trump learns how much we rely on the U.S. for our nuclear arms he’ll want to take a nice chunk out of Starmer’s extra billions for defence. No other country has such an arrangement with the U.S. It’s hardly a strength on our part.
 
I began writing this yesterday so was surprised—and pleased—to discover that I am not alone in thinking such thoughts. For today, a Guardian clickbait headline reads ‘The question no one dares ask: what if Britain has to defend itself from the US?’ George Monbiot examines the question, also pointing out how our reliance on U.S. military support could become a weakness. He might also have mentioned how the same is true for Canada and Greenland. It begs the question why Trump might support Putin in his land grab. Might it not legitimise (in his own head) equivalent behaviour? I wonder if our own hard-nosed leader has considered these angles as he genuflects to Trump today?

It defies belief. In their desperate bid to channel their inner Musk, the Scottish Labour Party is now, according to its leader Anas Sarwar, committed to setting up a Scottish DOGE—Department of Government Efficiency. Could this anticipate a similar move by our empty-headed Prime Minister, whose government thinks at least 5% can be trimmed from departmental budgets (or maybe more given the cock-up Reeves has made with her first Budget)? Nothing says more that Labour is so running scared of Reform that they want to ape it, whilst at the same time hypocritically condemning it for its hard-right stance. Farage must be luxuriating in the attention this all gives him, since the public may justifiably be led to believe that the ‘Left’ has no alternative. And in order to preserve the ‘Special Relationship’ and Britain’s role as a 'transatlantic bridge’ we will see a greater pivoting towards Trump and acquiescence in his agenda for us all. I don’t believe Starmer has the intellectual capacity to present an alternative, since as a committed Centrist he can do no more than repeat the mantra ‘we are where we are.’

​For those of us who adhere to Yorkshire’s dictum ‘if there’s owt for nowt grab it’ I occasionally pick up a copy of Tesco’s free magazine, which appropriately enough is called ‘Tesco.’ It can contain some interesting food recipe suggestions. But in the latest issue an advert from L’Oreal (Paris) caught my attention. ‘3 Serums in One’ it proclaimed, ‘Radical Visible Results on Your Key Ageing Signs.’ As a septuagenarian with ageing signs this naturally attracted my attention. What are these magical serums and how do they work? Who says they work? Well, the advert, albeit in small print says ‘Consumer test. 43 women, 6 weeks.’ Wow. On this basis, at a half price of only £31.99 I might be tempted! Perhaps after six weeks I too could have nice fresh looking, wrinkle free skin like the 20-something model pictured in the ad. Perhaps the veracity of these claims could be tested by the Advertising Standards Agency*—but I doubt that approach would get very far. The beauty industry thrives on the vanity of its customers, and nothing promoting the truth is likely to make much difference. L’Oréal is 34.7% owned by the Bettencourt family and is currently worth $191 billion. That’s a lot of £31.99s. All money well spent I’m sure.
 
*I did once make a complaint to the ASA about a misleading advert on behalf of the nuclear industry. My complaint was rejected on the grounds that the ad had been pre-approved by the ASA, which makes the role of the public rather redundant.

I watched a film ‘Against The Ice’ last night on Netflix, which recounted the largely true story of two Danish explorers who were in Greenland in the footsteps of an ill-fated group who were mapping the island in the early 1900s. The film recounts that the earlier Danish cartographers were seeking to demonstrate that Greenland was a whole island and not two bits separated latitudinally, as an American explorer had suggested—with the consequence that the U.S. had a right to claim the northern section as its own. The film, made in 2022 did not however precede Trump’s latest designs on the island as a kind of Danish patriotic response to current American expansionism. A quick look on Wikipedia shows that there has been a long history of U.S. claims to Greenland. Perhaps this is where Trump got his idea from and shows that he is not such an ahistorical figure after all. I have a suspicion he is going to get his way, but it won’t be by an outright purchase of the territory. It will be by an expansion of the existing U.S. military presence and the promise of U.S. corporate exploitation of Greenland’s vast mineral resources. Greenland’s independence movement (or sections of it) may look kindly on U.S. economic opportunities, not least as more of its land becomes accessible because of climate change, and sea routes open up.
 
The desire for control of the Arctic region was perhaps less consequential before climate change started to change the maps. Putin had one of his submarines plant a metal Russian flag on the seabed at the North Pole several years ago (I believe there is an argument that the Russian continental shelf extends that far). Perhaps it’s not so much in Ukraine where real future tensions will lie but in the far north. Surely as a prelude to this Trump could start renaming a few other seas. Is he really content to be separated from Russia by something called the Bering Strait—named after a Danish born Russian? The Bering Strait connects the Bering Sea (BAD) with the Chukchi Sea (VERY BAD). Surely that has to change! Let’s call it the American Strait (BEAUTIFUL). Bearing in mind that the mainland of the U.S. is a mere 53 miles from the mainland of Russia (their island territories are even closer, a mere 2.4 miles apart) then the prospects for a bit of name-calling one-upmanship are obvious and Trump would be more glorious than ever. All this may help resolve the question as to whether Trump really is a fascist. When is he going to fully latch on to the concept of Lebensraum?

I've been on a little tour of the North East, taking advantage of out of season hotel rates. In search of reminders of industrial heritage, this is now nearly all contained in museums, such as the marvellous Locomotion railway sheds in Shildon. Looking at old photos one sees how much the landscape has been cleaned up. There's little physical stuff left to remind you of the industries of the past. After the Industrial Revolution we now have the nostalgia revolution, even though few today would consider working a lifetime underground digging in narrow dark tunnels in filth and grime particularly nostalgic. Eeee, them were t'days! 
 
 Gone with the jobs for life and the communities these created and supported (brilliantly portrayed in the work of miner turned artist Norman Cornish) are the institutions of community, be they pubs or trades unions or queues at the fish and chip wagon. The centre of Bishop Auckland has been tweedified, and a similar story plays out in Spennymoor, where the public space seems neutralized and where one detects the hand of 'regeneration.' Have consultants been at work here?
 
 In place of community comes individualism and whilst it may have taken some time for Thatcherism to fully penetrate these parts it has done so now with a vengeance, first with the ejection of Labour in so many 'red wall' seats, but now with the rise of Reform, which Electoral Calculus suggests will transform the political map of the North. These mainly Brexit supporting areas will have found nothing to reassure them that the 'benefits' of the UK's departure from the EU have left them feeling any better off. The Brexit failure has left a vacuum which Farage, irony upon irony is seeking to fill (and now it turns out Trump is no respecter of Brexit).
 
 But happily there is resistance, and some of it comes from the art world. I am cheered by editorials in the freebie art publications which circulate in these parts. Listings mag The Crack says: 'Elon Musk. What a strange man, but I'ma guessing you could say that about anyone from the extreme right. Go on, choose some of the usual suspects. How about this lot: Hitler, Mosley, Webster, Franco, Hoover, Bannon, Yaxley-Lennon, Farage, Trump - you have to admit there's not a lot of 'normal' amongst this fairly broad selection.' Mixing up Farage with Hitler and Franco? Radical stuff! Then we get a slightly less vitriolic take in Artwork, 'The North's Original Free Arts Newspaper' which says [Big Tech's] 'specious claim to be defending 'free speech' has proved sufficient cover for them to hide behind and escape any responsibility for what has turned out all too often to be very damaging.' Separately, it says 'It remains to be seen whether the election of a rabid climate change denier to the White House will bring any further signs of policy moderation.'
 
 This sort of talk from a sector which has more than most adopted the full 'Wokest' Monty, or as we should now possibly call it, Deism (after DEI - Diversity, Equality, Inclusion) makes one hark back to the days of Nazi 'degenerate' art exhibitions (which proved extremely popular with the public). The new resistance to the New Rightists will perhaps take shape in the form of a new degenerate art (God knows what that may look like). I am used to reading editorials in Art Monthly magazine excoriating the Philistine Rightists taking over the planet, but perhaps such condemnations can be expected in a metropolitan art journal whose speciality is obscure PhD level artist interviews.
 
 Here in the North there could be a rawer sense of injustice at being taken for fools by the ‘levelling up’ con. Behind Spennymoor’s rather depressed looking town centre sits a large Lidl supermarket and not a flat cap to be seen (apart from my own that is – which I bought in France which allows me to share these random thoughts).

+According to a new book about the rise of Starmer, penned by Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund, reported in the Independent, ‘Plans to ban foreign donations were quietly shelved.’ Perhaps Labour’s reaping in of zillions in donations before the general election softened the Great HR Manager’s opposition to dark money. So the next time he’s jetting off somewhere he could perhaps take a copy of Peter Geoghegan’s book ‘Democracy For Sale’ which makes a compelling case for cleaning up political funding—as if that case needed making yet again. From a partisan point of view getting rid of dark money would do more harm to Labour’s opponents. Trade unions don’t tend to be domiciled for tax purposes in Jersey or the Cayman Islands. So why exactly have these plans been shelved? Might stemming this flow of money reduce Starmer’s powers of patronage? Or is he so dim he doesn’t even recognise the seriousness of the problem?
 
+I wish to congratulate Royal Mail (the Czech’s in the post) for its proposal to stop Saturday deliveries and maybe only deliver mail twice a week. Yes, it would be nice to get a delivery of mail twice a week.
 
+The economics consultancy Economic Insight has released a report produced for the nuclear industry which claims that the eight currently functional nuclear power stations have produced ’£130 billion’ in economic growth. The report was launched at an event in the House of Commons put on by EDF. There is no doubt that nuclear power has an economic value but is it strictly correct to claim this value is ‘economic growth?’ Nigel Lawson in his memoir referred to nuclear power as an economic basket case, always to be subsidised by the taxpayer. In Thatcher’s day we had something called the NFFO—the Non Fossil Fuel Obligation—which added 10% to our energy bills to subsidise nuclear power. Why they didn’t simply call it the Nuclear Levy is very hard to guess. Now that Starmer is backing Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) we could see further rises in energy bills—nuclear always costs more to build than first estimated, and these costs never go down over time, unlike renewables. As ever, if you hire consultants to provide you with a report they’re unlikely to demand payment for the opposite of what you want to hear. Economic Insight say ‘We combine rigorous economics and exceptional consulting skills to help you make great decisions.  Most importantly, everything we do is underpinned by a deep level of care and passion for understanding, and helping you achieve, your objectives.’ Next up: ‘Motor industry says road accidents contribute £40 billion a year to economic growth’ (equivalent to 1.5% of GDP—the Economist) ? 

It may be a perverse way of saying it, but at least Trump’s real estate designs on Gaza, where the demolition costs have already been met for his new ‘Middle East Riviera’ development is a bold and shameless acknowledgement that the so-called ‘two state solution’ is a prime example of a hauntological fantasy that’s festered in ever diminishing strength since 1967. The Israeli government is of course delighted that Trump has gone this far (always provided displaced Gazans aren’t moved into the West bank) - on the BBC news I heard an Israeli government spokesperson saying a barefaced lie to the effect that Israel had always worked towards a two state solution. Now the cat is out of the bag and very shortly I dare say we’ll see the President’s scheming son-in-law Jared Kushner sealing deals to build the first Trump golfing resort on the Mediterranean coast.